Simply put, a character is unable to open a door because they're pushing when they're supposed to pull (or vice-versa, although the former is significantly more common). Sometimes the door is clearly marked "PULL", although sometimes it's not. Practically always Played for Laughs.

Examples

Advertising

A commercial for the upcoming-at-the-time Pokémon Crystal had a team of explorers encountering a huge door with some writings on it, and try to push it open. Near the end, the camera cuts to a wide shot of the door, which clearly says "PULL" in unknown letters. We also see two natives discussing it:

Native 1 (in foreign language): Should we tell them it says "PULL"?

Native 2: No way, bro!

(They high-five each other)

Literature

The translated lyrics of one of the opera songs in the Discworld novel Maskerade relate to this.

There was an episode of Married... with Children in which this was a running gag. Kelly was trying to open the door in the wrong direction, and in order for her to succeed she was told to do it otherwise. And then she explains it to an FBI agent who was just as stupid.

A variation in The Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan version): Annie, in Hallie's house, has trouble opening the back door, because she is trying to turn the knob instead of pushing them.

One episode of The John Laroquette Show had Bobcat Golthwait as a neurotic safety inspector that always tried to open the door wrong, whether it was push or pull.

Donald Norman's seminal book on design, The Psychology of Everyday Things, devotes nearly an entire chapter to describing how the design of door handles leads people to make this mistake.

There's a joke in which a guy tells of a recurring dream in which he's in front of a massive door with a sign on it, which he pushes with all his might, but it won't budge. When he wakes, he's drenched in sweat and bone-tired. When asked what the sign says, he replies "pull".

I can't remember the exact deatils, but there was an episode of Married with Children, in which it was a running gag. Kelly was trying to open the door in the wrong direction, and in order for her to succeed she was told to do it otherwise. And then she explains it to an FBI agent who was just as stupid.

There's a joke in which a guy tells of a recurring dream in which he's in front of a massive door which he pushes with all his might, but it won't budge. When he wakes, he's drenched in sweat and bone-tired. When asked what the door says, he replies "Pull".

^^ Yet they are all better than Push Me Pull You, because that is a noun that is completely unrelated to the relevant verb. Please at least add Needs A Better Title and maybe help brainstorm one. Push Me Pull You is a terrible title, which is a solid reason to delay launch.

The "jury" is not "out" on whether it needs a better name. I see three bad-name posters and zero good-names. And it's not a popularity contest, anyway. Explain why you think it's a good name or help come up with a better one. Ignoring an argument is not a valid way to rebut it.

In Guy Ritchie's Snatch, Sol and Vinnie make an unsuccessful attempt to rob a bookies. In retreat after the bullet-proof shutters have fallen over the counter, they are stymied by the shop's door. Needless to say, after they have given up hope of getting out and collapsed to the floor (revealing their unmasked faces to the CCTV), their getaway driver, Tyrone, opens the door the other way to see what's taking them so long.

In one episode of Hey Arnold, Harold tries to push a door open, and Helga has to point out to him the "Pull" sign. But when he finally figures it out, he pulls the door too hard and hits himself with it.

Mentioned in Johnny And The Dead by Terry Pratchett, where Johnny speculates that even on alien planets where everyone breathes ammonia and has tentacles, there are still people who ZXCV the MVBN door. At a dramatically-appropriate moment somebody is slowed down just long enough because of trying to push the pull door.

re the American Idol doors - ALL those doors are double doors both of which are "push" doors but one of them is locked closed. That's illegal. People do it all the time but it's still illegal. If there's a fire people won't be able to/have time to/be allowed by the rest of the crowd to go to the other door; they'll get crushed up against that door by the fleeing mob and die.

In 30Rock, when Jack Donaghy is replaced by Don Geiss' Too Dumb To Live, Cloudcuckoolander daughter, the scene that sets up her character shows her pulling in desperation at a bathroom door with the words "push" printed on it very clearly.

In a volume of Amelia Rules, one character spends the entire story pushing the "pull" door; Amelia finally breaks down and points this out only to discover he's doing it deliberately as a science fair project.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy